Of Wings and Worms
by RisingPhoenix56
Summary: It's been two years after Alduin's defeat at the hands of the Last Dragonborn. The Civil War has ended in the Imperial's favor, and Lord Harkon has been vanquished. As Skyrim begins to pick up the pieces of the previous calamity, a underhand division of the Thalmor wishes to revive an ancient necromantic cult, and the one who can stop them is a very sassy OC.
1. Preface: You Asked for a Story

Whuh? Huh? You want a story? Right. What am I saying? Of course you do. Why else would you click that link?

So, what kind of story do you want? I've got billions of them. Billions. …Okay, well, maybe not _billions_, but a lot. Probably about ten thousand. …Maybe not that either. About… ah, never mind. You get the idea.

Right. Okay. Back to picking a story. Let's see… I've got one about the Hero of Kvatch. …You've heard that one already? But I bet you haven't heard about his awkward incident back when he was in the Mages Guild. Ha, that was hilarious… but he'd never forgive me if I told you. No offense.

Want something a little more recent? How about the Alduin thing that happened a couple of years ago? …Wait a flip. You probably already know that one, too.

Okay, how about the one that happened not too long ago? And it even has ME in it! And my guardian Aurorus, some dragons who claim they're sentient but really aren't, that Last Dragonborn person, a creepy dude with a staff, _idiot_ draugr, even more idiotic werewolves, some crazy vampires, more creepy dudes with staves, those Thalmor, and even more creepy dudes with staves that worship the creepy dudes with staves who worship the creepy dude with a staff. Seriously, that dude was _creepy_.

Okay, I'm excited. This is gonna be fun. Hit "Next," will you? Come on, do it. I wanna start talking. Hit it. I'll give you a sweetroll if you do.


	2. I Hate Weddings

You finally clicked it. Awesomesauce. Now, where did this story start…? Oh, right. Weddings.

Weddings, ugh. By the Nine, how I hate weddings. They're so… superficial. I mean, people just sit around pretending they're having a good time when they're either awkward or bored out of their wits. It's a pastime for grown-up fools, I tell you. Can weddings just die? Please? Heh… that's ironic, considering what I was about to do.

But anyways, there I was, trudging my way up to Castle Dour and flashing my forged invitation at the guard. I wasn't doing this willingly, you know. I was on a darned assignment. Aurorus is going to get a piece of my mind when I get back. And oh, great. People are staring at me too. I hate it when people stare. That just makes things even more awkward. Then again, I don't blame them. Everyone else at the wedding was wearing weird fancy clothes that make them look like they're made of cardboard. I'm decked head to toe in pitch-black dragonscale armor. I _kind of_ stick out like a sore thumb.

But I figured that since I'm subjected to this torture, I might as well get some food from it. So I walked over to the feast table and proceeded to wolf down any sweetrolls I saw. Have you ever had a sweetroll? They're awesomesauce. Mana from Sovngarde. I wish I could have all the sweetrolls in the universe. I could just sit there and….

Aaanyways, back to the story. Where was I? Ah, right. Food. Okay, so while I was stuffing my mouth with sweetrolls, this drunk guy decides to try and get me into his lap. Worst mistake he _ever_ made. After he finished his incoherent spheal, I kicked him. In the nuts. No one noticed. Are people just blind around here?

After a little while longer of fooling around, I realized night was falling. It was about time to get to business. Using my epically awesome sneaking skills, I snuck onto the overhang opposite the one the bride and groom. And then I sat. And waited. And waited.

For three _agonizingly_ long hours I sat there, watching the bride and groom do nothing. I had to listen to the Divines-awful bard trying to throw notes together in the hopes that they sound good. They didn't. I had to listen to all those petty quarrels between the Stormcloak and Imperial sides of the new family. And I'm sorry, but is it _really_ necessary for the bride and groom to address the guests every FIVE minutes? Does that _really_ have to happen? Let's think about that for a minute. No. It doesn't. You address them once. ONCE. Anything more than that, and you're just freaking repeating yourself.

Then I saw it. A star disappeared just above the bride's overhang, then reappeared. An assassin was perched atop the bride's overhang. And I knew what he was going to do. He was going to kill the bride. My eyes narrowed as he reached for the release on the dragon statue above her head.

Oh no. That's not going to happen. Nobody's taking my job from me. I'm the one who reaches my quarry first, not some sleazy assassin. In one fluid motion, I readied my dragonbone bow and nocked an arrow, aiming it at my target. I fired my arrow, and the assassin fell off the balcony and onto the streets. I hopped off my perch and went over to his lifeless form. I hadn't missed-my arrow was lodged perfectly into his left eye. I pulled back his hood. Nope. He wasn't the guy I had a serious vendetta on. But still, Aurorus told me to kill the assassin and protect the bride, and I did. I walked out of Solitude, a job well done.

You see, peeps do lots of things for a living. Some sell stuff. Some fight in wars. Some randomly sit on benches. Some farm stuff. I ASS-ASS-inate assassins. And dang, am I good at it.

* * *

I opened those Oblivion forsaken doors and walked out of Solitude's front entrance. Why do they have to be so freaking big? What are these people trying to bring in, a mammoth on stilts?

I jogged down the unnecessarily long cobblestone pathway and up to the carriage driver. I tossed him twenty septims and hopped onto the back of his carriage.

"Where to?" he asked.

"Helijarchen Hall." I replied as I pulled off my dragon priest mask and stared at the stars.

It was around dinner the next day when I reached home. I popped out of the carriage and slapped its wheel, telling the driver to go on ahead. Ah yes. Home sweet home. Nothing like it, nope, nothing at all…. Why the flip are there dead bandits in my front yard?

Yep, there were three random as snap, dead as flip bandits burnt to a crisp in front of my door. I sighed and shook my head. Aurorus' dragon always makes a mess out of things. I heard a familiar roar and looked up. Sure enough, Klokotiid landed in front of me, his blue eyes meeting my green.

"_Drem yol lok_, _kiir_." He began. "I trust your _nir_, your hunt, went well?" I rolled my eyes. I hate it when he calls me a kid.

"I'm not a child, Klokotiid." I replied. "I'm 16. And yeah, I got the Dark Brotherhood guy. Didn't even know what hit him." I turned back to the bandits. "You've been busy." A low rumble escaped Klokotiid's throat. I assumed it was a chuckle- let's be optimistic, yeah?

"The _joore_ were clumsy," Klokotiid rumbled as he stretched his white wings. "They thought to _kren ko_, to break in, using _joor_ means."

I smirked. Yeah, trying to pick the lock on the door doesn't result in anything. It's just there for show. Magic FTW. They would have been there all day. I stared at their charred corpses. They've had one bad day.

"Well," I said. "I hope you like your meat well burnt."

Klokotiid did another chuckle-thing, though this time he decided to have smoke come out of his nostrils, accentuating his white scales.

"You would best go inside and see your _bormah_, _kiir_." The dragon said, giving quite an audible stress on the "kiir". Divines darn him. "My _thuri_ will be pleased with your success." As I headed towards the door, Klokotiid took to the sky (and neglected to offer me a ride, the darn, stuck-up dragon), wolfing a bandit down as he flew off. I ran my finger along the edge of the door, dispersing the spell that kept the door locked. I smirked and turned to the dead bandits.

"And that," I said. "is how you open a door."

The moment I closed the front door behind me, a freaking huge weight smashed into me, and I slammed against the door. Next thing I knew, there was a tongue in my face, licking me like I had freaking _died_. I chuckled and hugged my sabre cat back.

"It's good to see you too, Rein, you big buddy." I said. Rein gave an audible purr as I tapped his forelegs. "You mind letting me go now?" Rein, sensing my request, pushed off from the door and sat down, letting me finally walk through my house. First assassins, then bandits, a dragon, and finally a sabre cat. How hard does it have to be to get to my room? I heard a chuckle from the dining hall, and I looked up to see Aurorus leaning on the table. Yep. Aurorus. THE Aurorus. 8th Champion of Cyrodill, former elite Psijic Monk, Dragonborn (but not the THE Dragonborn, that's overrated), and my adoptive father. Then, after he picked me up from Honorhall Orphanage, he decided to start up this anti-assassin business. Get the jist? Yeah. Epic person. Aurorus was just chilling there, decked out in his Psijic robes with his hood down as per the usual, arms crossed over his chest. His smile turned into a grin as I walked up to him.

"There you are, Serri." He said as he pulled me into a hug. The aged High Elf sat me down in a chair and pulled another one opposite it. "I was beginning to think I would have to teleport you back here." He joked as he sat down. I scoffed.

"Oh come off it, Aurorus." I replied. "Stop being so dramatic. I was only gone a few days." The ex-monk chuckled softly, his blue eyes radiating kindness. He got up and went into the kitchen.

"Even so, Rein really missed you." He said from the kitchen. "He often spent the time outside looking for you." Aurorus emerged from the kitchen, carrying two bowls of horker stew. "And frankly," he continued, setting one of the bowls in front of me. "I missed having my helper around the house." I rolled my eyes, crossing my arms in front of me.

"Again," I said. "Enough with the drama. What did you do while I was gone, drink a touchy-feely potion or something?" Aurorus smiled again, raising his hand in a conciliatory gesture.

"All right, all right." He replied. He brought his hand out from behind his back, revealing a sweetroll. "Peace offering?" he said. My mouth watered at the sight of the heavenly substance. SWEETROLL!

"Flip yes." I replied and swiped the food from his hand. It was gone in less than a second. "You're forgiven," I said as I licked my fingers. Aurorus chuckled for the umpteenth time, as friendly wrinkles formed around his eyes. He settled back in his chair.

"So," he began. "Tell me. How did the mission go? Did you find the Dark Brotherhood assassin all right?" I nodded.

"Yeah, yeah," I replied. "Dude took forever, though. I had to sit there and listen to all that wedding trash for like, eternity."

"And Vittoria Vici?"

"Safe and sound with that knucklehead of a husband." I replied. "Though she seriously needs to plan her speeches better. I lost count how many times she repeated herself."

"That's Nordic custom, Serri."

"Then the Nords need some wedding classes or something."

"You're a Nord, Serri. You forget that."

"Holy mother of sweetrolls, don't send me to that class."

Aurorus laughed out loud at that one. Then he decided to be a butt and change the subject.

"While you were out," he began. "I did some 'digging'. Amaund Motierre's not working alone. Someone's pulling the strings." I leaned forward.

"Really?" I said. "The dossier said he was just in it for the money." Aurorus shook his head.

"I've proved that wrong." He replied. "Klokotiid noticed large amounts of Thalmor activity in the abandoned ruin, Bleak Falls Barrow. He happened to see Motierre enter in the company of Thalmor soldiers several times." I raised an eyebrow.

"So you think Motierre's working for the Thalmor?" I said. "That means the Thalmor are trying to kill the Emperor. That makes no flipping sense. I thought the Thalmor had an alliance with the Empire."

"That's correct, Serri." Aurorus replied. "And that's what I want you to find out. I want you to go to Whiterun tomorrow, and try to find out what the Thalmor are up to. This is unusual for them. And while you're at it, try to convince Motierre to back out of his contract, will you?" I sighed, annoyed.

"So I can't kill more Dark Brotherhood?" I asked. Aurorus shook his head.

"No." came his reply, obstinate. "You only kill assassins when you have to, Serri. Never forget that." I rolled my eyes. I, for one, think that's a load of dragon dung. Which it is. A load of flipping dragon dung. I stood up from the table and headed to my room.

"Sure. Fine." I called back. "Whiterun tomorrow. Got it." I shut my door and grabbed the journal on my nightstand, flipping through the pages. Okay, it's not really a journal, more like a book of revenge. Yeah, I'm not one of those squealy girls who feel the need to write down every time she takes a breath. I flipped to the page of the only memory of my childhood that mattered to me: the face of the assassin who killed my parents. I peered at my sketch of his face, comparing it to the one I killed today. I sighed. They weren't even close. The one I killed was a Nord, while my target was a Dunmer. I closed the book, got into bed, and turned out the light. I didn't have any Divines-forsaken luck that day, but I'd find him.

Ohhhh yes, I'd find him.

* * *

**A/N**: Hi, readers! I finally get to talk to you guys.

Welcome to Of Wings and Worms! I was playing Skyrim last month, and I noticed just how illogical and spontaneous the game is sometimes. Then, when I went to work on my original fiction, I realized that the main character in my novel would really thrive in a Skyrim fic, as she makes fun of anything that doesn't make sense to her. And then I kind of wrote this fic from there. It's also a great opportunity to practice nuanced writing. Serri and Aurorus are both from my novel. One more is set to enter in the next chapter, but from there, I'll be adding more based on how well those three are received.

My apologies for the slow plot development in this chapter. Things will pick up in the next one, almost exponentially.

Klo-ko-tiid means sand-in-time in draconic. I wanted the singular version of "sand", as in "grain of sand," but the Wiki page decided to withhold that from me. I wanted Klokotiid's name to reflect "ex pluribus unum"- one out of many. Using "tiid" at the end gives it a temporal sense, to convey "one moment out of many". Essentially, Klokotiid is a metaphor for the philosophy "things will get better", or at least an attempt at it.

If you want a full explanation of the allusions and metaphors for this chapter, feel free to PM me. If I put the whole explanation in here, the author's notes would be too long for my liking.

On a final note, I politely ask for your patience when waiting for this to update. I put a ton of effort into anything with "Serri" in it. My chapters will go through revision after revision until I get it as close as possible the way I want it to be. And I have a writing disability, which slows this process down almost tenfold. I'm expecting that the earliest I can get the next chapter done is sometime next month, but it might be longer. I apologize for any inconvenience.

~RisingPhoenix56

Draconic Translations:

Drem Yol Lok- Greetings (Peace Fire Sky)

Kiir- Child

Nir- Hunt

Joor (Plural: "Joore")- Mortal

Kren- Break

Rein- Roar

Bormah- Father (in this case, adoptive father)

Thuri- Lord

Klo- Sand

Ko- In

Tiid- Time


End file.
